The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Over the course of the twentieth century, humans built, on average, one large dam a day, hulking structures of steel and concrete designed to control flooding, facilitate irrigation, and generate electricity. Dams were also lucrative contracts, large-scale employers, and the physical instantiation of a messianic drive to conquer territories and control nature. Some of the results of that drive were charismatic mega-infrastructure—the Hoover on the Colorado River or the Aswan on the Nile—but most of the tens of thousands of dams that dot the Earth’s landscape have drawn little attention. These are the smaller, though not inconsequential, barriers that today impede the flow of water on nearly two-thirds of the world’s large waterways. Chances are, what your map calls a “lake” is actually a reservoir, and that thin blue line that emerges from it once flowed very differently.
Damming a river is always a partisan act. Even when explicit infrastructure goals— irrigation, flood control, electrification—were met, other consequences were significant and often deleterious. Across the world, river control displaced millions of people, threatening livelihoods, foodways, and cultures. In the western United States, dams were often an instrument of colonialism, used to dispossess Indigenous people and subsidize settler agriculture. And as dams slowed the flow of water, inhibited the movement of nutrients, and increased the amount of toxic algae and other parasites, they snuffed out entire river ecologies. Declining fish populations are the most evident effect, but dams also threaten a host of other animals—from birds and reptiles to fungi and plants—with extinction. Every major dam, then, is also a sacrifice zone, a place where lives, livelihoods, and ways of life are eliminated so that new sorts of landscapes can support water-intensive agriculture and cities that sprout downstream of new reservoirs.
Such sacrifices have been justified as offerings at the temples of modernity. Justified by—and for—whom, though? Over the course of the twentieth century, rarely were the costs and benefits weighed thoughtfully and decided democratically. As Kader Asmal, chair of the landmark 2000 World Commission on Dams, concluded, “There have been precious few, if any, comprehensive, independent analyses as to why dams came about, how dams perform over time, and whether we are getting a fair return from our $2 trillion investment.” A quarter century later, Asmal’s words ring ever truer. A litany of dams built in the mid-twentieth century are approaching the end of their expected lives, with worrying prospects for their durability. Droughts, magnified and multiplied by the effects of climate change, have forced more and more to run below capacity. If ever there were a time to rethink the mania for dams, it would be now.
There is some evidence that a combination of opposition, alternative energy sources, and a lack of viable projects has slowed the construction of major dams.
But a wave of recent and ongoing construction, from India and China to Ethiopia and Canada, continues to tilt the global balance firmly in favor of water impoundment.
The drive to control nature is evident not only in mega-infrastructures like the Hoover and Aswan dams, but in smaller dams as well.
The first paragraph calls dams the instantiation of a messianic drive to control nature.
It says some results of that drive were famous mega-structures like the Hoover and Aswan, but most of the tens of thousands of dams are smaller, little-noticed barriers that still block nearly two-thirds of large waterways.
So the famous dams are cited to show that the same drive is found in large and small dams alike; "charismatic" describes the structures, not their builders.
Hence, The drive to control nature is evident not only in mega-infrastructures like the Hoover and Aswan dams, but in smaller dams as well.
Exemplification and manifestation
The paragraph calls dams the "physical instantiation of a messianic drive to conquer territories and control nature".
Here the word means a concrete instance or embodiment of an abstract drive: the dam is the drive made visible.
Exemplification and manifestation carry exactly this sense of being an example and an outward expression; durability, development and viability do not fit the meaning.
Hence, Exemplification and manifestation.
Mega-infrastructure – Sacrifice zone – Worshipping modernity – Water impoundment
The argument moves through four stages: dams as massive infrastructure driven by a wish to control nature, each dam as a sacrifice zone for people and ecologies, these sacrifices justified as offerings at the temples of modernity, and the continuing global tilt toward water impoundment.
The third set names these four stages in order.
The other sets mix main ideas with minor details such as lucrative contracts, toxic algae, a quarter century or alternative energy.
Hence, Mega-infrastructure – Sacrifice zone – Worshipping modernity – Water impoundment.
smaller, though not inconsequential, dams are safer than large dam projects.
The passage calls smaller dams not inconsequential and says they impede water flow on most large waterways, but it never compares their safety with that of large dams.
The other statements are supported: the $2 trillion investment and the lack of a fair-return analysis question the cost, dams in the western United States dispossessed Indigenous people, and construction continues despite opposition and alternatives.
So the claim about smaller dams being safer is not a valid inference.
Hence, smaller, though not inconsequential, dams are safer than large dam projects.
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The last paragraph of the passage refers to “middle-class, white, professional men”. Which one of the following qualities best describes the connection among them?
Study the following sets of concepts and identify the set that is conceptually closest to the concerns and arguments of the passage.
According to the passage, who or what was an “alienist”?
“Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness of judgments about mental state was exposed.” Which one of the following best describes the use of the word “confession” in this sentence?
According to the incentive or moral hazard argument, which one of the designs below is most consistent with the claim that some inequality can raise growth?
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The primary function of the three-part case for a positive income inequality–economic growth link in the first half of the passage is to show that:
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Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
